1940s Top Songs - Lyrics Titles List
200+ Songs that helped England through WW2, the battle of Britain and the London Blitz, by Vera Lynn, George Formby, Gracie Fields, Glen Miller, Andrews Sisters etc.
See below for a list of available titles.
I REMEMBER from when I was young, at family get-together's, my parents stories about what happened during the war. My Family lived in north London (Finchley) during the war so didn't get it as bad as some parts. But still I was fascinated by their stories of sleeping in underground stations, near misses, incendiary bombs, air raid warden duty, shrapnel coming through roofs, "spivs" who could apparently get anything, for a price, despite the rationing, hiding under the stairs or in the Anderson shelter when the air sirens went and many other things.
These gatherings often included a degree of drinking and singing of songs that had been popular though the war. It seemed that going through these hardships together engendered a great community spirit which lingered long after the war had ended and which these songs helped to revive. The songs listed here include many of those I can remember being sung and from old records being played at the time. I expect many of you out there of a certain age will have similar memories and I hope seeing these songs again will bring you the same nostalgia it brought to me when compiling them. This collection obviously has a bit of an English bias, if you are more interested in American hit songs of the war years see this page: Top hit song lyrics taken from the American music charts of 1930 to 1950
For top songs of the 1940's books and sheet music to buy check the 1940s Songs at Sheet Music Plus.
Below is a list of all the titles available in this section. To view the songs just click on the title required. Should you need a print-out or editable version of the song (without banners or adverts) PDF and RTF files are available from the link at the bottom of each song page. Right click and use "Save target as" to download the file.